The Uses of Groups

Today, more than any other time, social workers have vast opportunities to work with different
groups given their employment in an increasingly wide variety of social welfare settings. There
are, for example, opportunities offered in "traditional settings" like those found in homes for
abandoned and neglected children, institutions for youth and adult legal offenders, rehabilitation
centers for the mentally and physically handicapped, and health centers and hospitals. Other
settings provide opportunities to work with groups of children and women who are victims of
physical and other forms of abuse, former political prisoners and migrant urban poor and
beneficiaries of livelihood and other economic development programs. Areas which have been
struck by natural disasters also offer a new setting for group work practice. The group approach
can be employed in various phases of disaster response, from the early phase concerned
primarily with resource provision through the subsequent period of rehabilitation of victims of
these disasters.

 Today, more than ever, social workers have many chances to work with different kinds of
groups because they are now found in many types of social service workplaces. For
example, social workers can still be found in traditional places like homes for children who
were abandoned or neglected, centers for young or adult people who broke the law,
rehabilitation centers for people with physical or mental problems, and hospitals or health
centers.
 But there are also new kinds of workplaces for social workers. These include working with:
 Children and women who have been abused,
 Former political prisoners,
 Poor families in cities (especially those who moved from the provinces),
 People who are receiving help from livelihood or job programs.
 Places affected by natural disasters (like typhoons, floods, or earthquakes) also need
social workers. In these areas, group work can be used in different stages—from giving
emergency help like food and shelter to helping people recover and rebuild their lives after
the disaster.

For social workers, the group approach offers the following advantages:
1. Many individuals feel more comfortable, or are encouraged to participate and share ideas
because of the interaction that takes place in a group. They receive support and assurance from
the realization that other participants have the same, or even more serious problems.

 Many people feel more at ease or more willing to talk and share their thoughts when they are
in a group. This is because talking with others helps them feel supported. They also feel
better when they realize that other people in the group have similar problems—or even
bigger ones.
2. Group members receive psychological rewards from the experience of helping others with
their problems. This is the "helper therapy" principle.

 Group members feel good emotionally when they are able to help others with their
problems. This idea is called the "helper therapy" principle—it means that helping others
also helps the one who gives help.

3. Internal forces in groups (such as contagion, affectional ties, group pressure, leadership) can
influence attitudes, values and behaviors, making groups potent instruments for effecting desired
changes in the individual and the group.
 Things that happen inside a group—like strong emotions spreading (contagion), close
relationships (affectional ties), peer pressure (group pressure), and leadership—can affect
how people think, feel, and act. Because of this, groups can be powerful tools for creating
positive changes in both individuals and the whole group.
4. The group lends itself to the use of a variety of activities that are not only relevant to the
group's goals but also respond to the individual members' needs and interests (e.g., group
discussions, group dynarnics exercises, role play, audio-visuals).

 Groups can use many different activities that help reach the group’s goals and also meet the
needs and interests of each member. Some examples are group discussions, fun group
exercises, role-playing, and using videos or pictures.

5. The cooperative thinking process that takes place in a group, especially if guided properly, can
hasten decision making on the part of its members.

 When group members think and work together—especially with good guidance—they can
make decisions faster and more easily.

6. Many individuals have similar problems that are best handled with, a group engaged in
collective action instead of acting individually.
 Many people have the same or similar problems, and these problems are often easier to solve
when they work together as a group instead of trying to fix them alone.
7. For certain purposes, it may be more economical to work with groups than with individuals.
The best laid-out plans for working with individual clients on a one-to-one basis are often not
implemented in many agencies in the country because of staff constraints. The group approach
should be considered as an alternative, supplemented, if appropriate, with work with individual
members.
 Sometimes, working with a group is more practical and saves time and resources than
working with people one by one. In many places, there are not enough staff to help everyone
individually. That’s why using the group approach can be a good choice, and it can still be
combined with individual help when needed.
Given the preceding advantages, social workers form groups because they recognize that groups
can be effectively utilized to bring about planned change. The following are specific reasons for
using the group mode of service:
1. To use the group as the primary means of helping (e.g., form a treatment/rehabilitation-
oriented group for youth offenders in a correctional institution);
 This means using the group as the main way to help people. For example, creating a group
for young people in jail where they can support each other and work on changing their
behavior together.
2. To augment individual methods (e.g., form a counseling group to reinforce treatment goals in
a one-to-one helping relationship);
 This means using the group to support or strengthen what is already being done in one-on-
one sessions. For example, creating a counseling group to help members reach their personal
goals while they also get individual help.
3. To augment work with individual families (e.g., organize a parents' group);
 This means using a group to support the work being done with individual families. For
example, creating a group for parents so they can share experiences, learn from each other,
and get support.
4. To augment community methods (e.g., form a "core group" to facilitate community problem-
solving); and

 This means using a group to help make community work more effective. For example,
forming a small group of leaders or active members (a "core group") to help solve problems
in the community together.
5. To work with groups in the context of inter-group approaches at the community level (e.g.,
help a group to become effective in coalitions of various community groups toward defined
objectives).
 This means helping one group work well with other groups in the community. For example,
guiding a group so it can join forces with other community groups to reach shared goals.
Uses of Groups
Since social workers use the group approach for many reasons and we also realize that there are
many advantages found in this mode of service delivery, let us now study how social workers
can use groups.
 Social workers use groups for many different reasons, and we know that group work has
many benefits. So now, let’s learn how social workers can use groups to help people.
There are no clear-cut rules that tell us when or when not to use groups. We know, however, that
the group approach is not useful for all client problems. Margaret E. Hartford's suggestion on the
use of groups can serve as a helpful frame of reference. The targets for what she calls a
"common-sense classification" are (1) the individual members; (2) problems in interpersonal
relationships; (3) a small system in the neighborhood, community, or institution; and (4) large
systems of institutions, regions, state, or nation.

 There are no exact rules about when to use group work and when not to. We do know that
group work doesn't work for every kind of problem. A social worker named Margaret E.
Hartford gave a helpful way to decide when to use groups. She said group work can be
useful for:
 Helping individual people in the group,
 Solving relationship problems between people,
 Working with small groups in a neighborhood, community, or school,
 Helping large groups or systems, like government agencies or organizations.

On the basis of social science theoretical formulae and studies, Hartford offers the following
categories of group use:
1. For effect on participants. socialization re-socialization; acquiring or changing concept of self,
identity, motivation; attitude formation and change, formation and modification of values and
beliefs; behavioral change; achieving a sense of belonging and support; education.

 Group work can have many effects on the people who join. For example, it can help them:
 Learn how to interact with others (socialization)
 Learn new behaviors or correct old ones (re-socialization)
 Understand themselves better and build their self-identity
 Find motivation to improve
 Develop or change their attitudes, values, and beliefs
 Change their behavior in a positive way
 Feel that they belong and have support
 Learn new things (education)

Many social workers today are employed in settings in which the primary purpose for using the
group mode is to effect desired changes on the part of the group members. One example of this is
the work being done in child-caring institutions for former street children. The children are
provided with group experiences that are intended to help them learn or re-learn positive
attitudes and values and be motivated to give up street life. Another example is the work going
on with groups of disadvantaged women in many community social agencies pursuing
developmental goals. Through the groups the women are helped to learn new knowledge and
skills that not only help them become better wives and mothers but also improve their self-
esteem which, in turn, leads to even more positive results like the women becoming contributing
members in their respective communities.

 Today, many social workers work in places where the main goal of group work is to help
group members change in a positive way.
 For example, in homes for former street children, group activities are used to teach them
good values and attitudes, and to help them want to leave street life behind.
 Another example is in community programs for poor women. These groups help women
learn new knowledge and skills to become better mothers and wives. They also build
confidence (self-esteem), which helps them grow and become active, helpful members of
their community.

2. For collective problem-solving: work on common or joint tasks, particularly in the area of
ideas, group thinking, cognitive, emotional, or social, or individual, group, or social situation.
 Groups are also used to solve problems together. This means working as a team on shared
tasks or issues. Group members help each other think of ideas and solutions—whether the
problem is personal, emotional, social, or something the whole group or community is
facing.
Many social work groups are organized because there are people who need help in dealing with
their common concerns or problems. In many communities, social workers form resident groups
who want to undertake specific projects like the construction of a multi-purpose community
center, or the building of safe footpaths for school children in the barangay or obtaining the
needed resources for their group income-generating business enterprise. Many practitioners, on
the other hand, are working with groups in institutions like those for unwed teenage mothers for
whom a guided group experience can help them decide whether to keep their babies or give them
up for adoption, and also help them resolve problems like family rejection, returning to school or
finding employment, and others. Many social workers today are also working with groups who
need help in dealing with crisis situations like male heads of households who are confronted
with, the effects of disasters on themselves as well as their families, and women who are victims
of domestic violence.
 Many social work groups are formed because people need help with similar problems or
concerns.
 In communities, social workers often help form resident groups who want to work on
projects together—like building a community center, creating safe walkways for
schoolchildren, or starting a small business for income.
 Some social workers help groups in institutions, like young unmarried mothers. In these
groups, the girls can talk about important decisions—like whether to keep their babies or
choose adoption—and get support with problems like being rejected by their families, going
back to school, or finding a job.
 Other social workers work with groups who are facing a crisis. For example, they help
fathers who were affected by disasters, or women who are victims of domestic violence,
so they can cope and find solutions together.

3. For change in the social situation or conditions outside the group: modification of the
institution or social system within which the group exists or of the social situation - including the
community or society - through pressure, dissemination of information, or organization;
modification of attitudes of outsiders.

 Groups can also be used to create change in the world outside the group. This means
trying to improve unfair or harmful situations in the community, school, government, or
society.
 Groups can do this by:
 Sharing information with others,
 Speaking out or putting pressure on leaders to make changes,
 Organizing activities to raise awareness,
 Helping people outside the group change their negative attitudes.

Many practitioners tend to think of social action only in terms of large-scale community
organizing when in fact a great deal of such activity is being undertaken by small groups who
want to change something in their situations which they see as the cause of their difficulty or
problem. Two examples of such group efforts stand out among many that have been described to
me by social workers. One is about how a group of mothers in a remote rural area in the
Mountain Province was able to pressure their town mayor to order the closure of a gambling den
in the area. The gambling den was operating very near the school premises, resulting in school
truancy and other problems on the part of their teen-age children like hanging around with
undesirable characters and taking alcoholic drinks. The other example is about how a group of
eight patients in a hospital ward succeeded in making the hospital administration change the
rules pertaining to the visiting hours for patients. The rule seemed to have been established to
respond to the convenience of the hospital personnel and did not take into consideration the
constraints faced by the patients' relatives, many of whom come from distant places. In both
examples, the goals were achieved with the worker serving primarily as a guide and enabler.
 Many people think that social action only happens in big community movements. But
actually, even small groups can make changes when they want to fix a problem in their
situation.
 Here are two real examples shared by social workers:
 A group of mothers in a rural area in Mountain Province got their town mayor to close a
gambling place near their children’s school. The gambling was causing problems—kids
were skipping school, hanging out with bad influences, and even drinking alcohol.
 A group of eight hospital patients convinced the hospital to change its visiting hours. The
old rule was made for the convenience of the hospital staff, but it didn’t consider that many
patients had relatives who lived far away.
 In both stories, the social worker guided and supported the group, but it was the group
members themselves who acted and made the change happen.

How Groups Effect Change

There is a wide selection of social science literature that inform us about how groups bring about
change. Of these, I think Dorwin Cartwright's three ways of viewing how groups enter into the
process of change are particularly relevant:

 There are many books and studies in social science that explain how groups can create
change. One expert, Dorwin Cartwright, shared three important ways to understand how
groups take part in the change process. These ideas are very useful and help us see how
group work can lead to real change.

In the first view, the group is seen as a source of influence over its members. Efforts to change
behavior can be supported or blocked by pressures on members stemming from the group. To
make constructive use of these pressures the group must be a medium of change. In the second
view, the group itself becomes the target of change. To change the behavior of individuals it may
be necessary to change the leadership, its emotional atmosphere, or its stratification into cliques
and hierarchies. Even though the gods may be to change the behavior of individuals, the target of
change becomes the group. In the third view, it is recognized that many changes of behavior can
be brought about only by the organized efforts of groups as agents of change.

 Dorwin Cartwright described three ways that groups are connected to change:
 The group influences its members – A group can help or stop its members from changing.
For example, if most people in the group support a good behavior, it’s easier for everyone to
follow. To use this power in a good way, the group should be used as a tool for positive
change.
 The group is the one that needs to change – Sometimes, to help a person change, we need
to change the group itself. This might mean changing the leader, the mood in the group, or
breaking up unfair smaller groups (cliques). Even if we want to change a person, the real
focus might need to be on the group.
 The group acts together to create change – In many cases, real change only happens when
the group works as a team. Groups can become agents of change, meaning they take action
together to fix problems and improve situations.

The Group as Medium of Change

If the group is a "medium of change" the target of influence is the individual member, and the
source of that influence is the group (e.g., the members' interaction with each other, the worker
and the interaction with the members). Guided group processes are utilized to help members of
the group with their particular problems. An example of this would be youngsters whose
disadvantaged upbringing has prevented them from learning the norms of the larger society, or
who may have learned these but for some reason, have forgotten them. Others may require
guidance in developing their sense of identity or in enhancing their feeling of belongingness and
self-esteem. There are also those who may need help in the areas of interpersonal relationships,
motivation, and learning. In all these situations, the group serves as a small social system whose
influence can be guided by the social worker so as to induce desired changes among individual
participants. Thus, the group becomes a medium of change.
 When the group is used as a "medium of change," it means the goal is to help each
individual member, and the group itself is the source of that help. The way group members
interact with each other and with the social worker can help them grow and improve.
 For example:
 Some young people grow up in hard situations and never learn proper behavior or values.
 Others may know the rules of society but have forgotten or ignored them.
 Some need help finding out who they are or building their confidence and self-worth.
 Others may have problems with relationships, motivation, or learning.
 In all these cases, the group acts like a small community that the social worker guides
carefully to help each member change in a good way.

The Group as Target of Change

It may also be necessary for the group as a whole or certain aspects of the group to change in
order to effect change in its members, Robert Vinter calls this "indirect means of influence"
where practitioner interventions are used to effect modifications in group conditions which, in
turn, affect the members. These conditions include the group's composition, climate, structure
(including size, governing and operating procedures, and sub-groups) and processes. Use of such
means of influence is unique to group work because the group serves as the "action system".
Thus, the group's size may have to be changed if it is affecting the quality of member-member
and worker-member interactions and relationship, and a highly formal or autocratic leadership
style may have to be modified if it is blocking individual participation and group decision
making. These and other changes in different aspects of the group system often have to be
undertaken in order to achieve desired effects on the individual members as defined by their
treatment or helping goals. When these are done, the group becomes the target of change.

 Sometimes, to help the people in the group, the group itself needs to change. This idea is
called "indirect means of influence," a term used by Robert Vinter. It means the social
worker makes changes in how the group works, and these changes then help the group
members improve.
 Some parts of the group that might need to change include:
 Who is in the group (group composition)
 The mood or atmosphere of the group (climate)
 Group structure, like how big the group is, how decisions are made, and if there are
smaller groups inside the group
 Group processes, or how things are done in the group
 For example:
 If the group is too big and people don’t feel connected, the group may need to be made
smaller.
 If the leader is too strict or controlling, that style may need to change so that everyone can
join in and share their ideas.
 Making these kinds of changes helps the group become a better place for members to grow
and reach their goals. In this case, the group becomes the target of change.

The Group as Agent of Change

The concept of the group as "agent of change" refers to the active involvement of the group in
efforts to modify, or redirect features or forces in its social environment which make demands,
create pressures, and impose constraints on the group which can have adverse effects on its
development and goal achievement. In many cases, change in the individual or group can only
come about after the social environment has been modified or changed.

 The idea of the group as an "agent of change" means that the group takes action to
improve or fix problems in its surroundings (the social environment). These outside
problems—like unfair rules, pressure from others, or lack of support—can make it hard for
the group to grow or reach its goals.
 Sometimes, real change in a person or group can only happen if the group helps change the
environment around them first.

The use of the group as an agent of change is done not only to supplement the worker's own
efforts, but to enable the group to be an active player in its own goal-achieving process. Such an
experience, constantly repeated, helps to develop in the group members a sense of autonomy and
confidence which is what ultimately leads empowerment, a priority value in social work. to
human
Vinter and Galinsky state that a group's social environment includes the (a) separate social
affiliations and personal environments of the group's members (i.e., family, school, etc.) and (b)
objects, persons and other units collectively encountered by the group as a social entity (e.g., the
guards in a correctional institution, the houseparents in a rehabilitation center, local officials who
promulgate and enforce rules). These two environments often overlap (such as in the case of a
group whose members all reside in the same institution) but they are also, in many cases,
mutually exclusive.
Individual group members, on their own, or with encouragement from the worker may want to
modify some conditions in their personal environments. Group attention can be focused on these,
with the members sharing past experiences, ideas on appropriate behavior, and problem- solving
tasks.
In the case of homogeneous groups, individual members often find that they have many common
experiences, so, that the group's efforts in dealing with one member's personal situation are also
directly relevant to the other members' own situations.
The group's effort at modifying conditions in its social environment which impinge on the whole
group may relate to varied concerns such as the lack or absence of essential resources (e.g.,
medical supplies in a government hospital), unreasonable agency policies and rules, non-
observance of laws and regulations, negative attitudes of service providers, and hostile attitudes
of the outside community. The worker provides the necessary guidance to the group in its efforts
at being an agent of change. The change it seeks is done through information dissemination,
persuasion, bargaining or negotiation, pressure, confrontation, and other change techniques. The
worker may have to perform varied roles in relation to a group that seeks to modify its social
environment. These roles can include being an information-giver, facilitator, mediator, counselor,
adviser, catalyst, and consultant.
The group's ability to act as an agent of change is affected by the opportunities, facilities and
constraints created or imposed by its own environment. These opportunities and facilities include
access to technical and material resources, provision of physical facilities for group meetings,
changes in work schedules to encourage attendance in group meetings, etc. The constraints, on
the other hand, might be imposed by bureaucratic processes which discourage collective action
and create additional problems, or legal and other restrictions on group activity.
A reciprocal relationship exists between intra-group factors and conditions, and the group's
immediate and broader environment. More specifically, a group exerts greater influence on its
environment (e.g., the social agency) if group cohesiveness obtains through individual
acceptance or recognition of the group's leadership, common values, and established norms.
When such degree of cohesiveness gets perceived by and gains adequate recognition from the
larger environment, the group tends to be all the more influential. Similarly, an environment, to
be influential on a group, has to be perceived by the latter as supportive of its efforts to change,
or concerned about the group's well-being. The give-and-take relationship between the two
systems help the group become more effective in achieving its goals.
An Integrated Approach to Work with Groups
Given existing social and cultural realities in the Philippines, we cannot overemphasize the
interdependent relationship of the group and its environment. Thus, the practitioner who wants to
be effective in the use of the group approach, should be prepared for the challenge of working
with a group on an intra-group level (the group as medium and target of change), and also to
engage in extra-group activities that are essential to group learning and problem-solving with the
group as the main resource (the group as an agent of change).
This stance can very well be called an integrated approach to work with groups in which the
worker uses the group as a medium of change, as a target of change, and as an agent of change.
This does not mean that the worker must use every group as a medium, target, and agent of
change in order to be of help. A generalist orientation to social work practice also does not mean
that every practitioner in the country is expected to engage individuals, groups and communities
in the helping process every time he is dealing with one client system's problem or situation.
What is expected is that a social worker will do what is necessary and appropriate, not
withholding any effort that would make for more effective helping.
Keeping in mind the preceding discussion on the uses of groups in social work will make for a
better appreciation of the models and approaches in work with groups which will be presented
later.